The extent of human creativity/weirdness always baffles me, but I have to say the Internet really won my heart this week. Here are some staff picks of weird, beautiful, smart stories and videos from the interwebs this week.

• Today was the final day to tweet #TornadoWeek to turn up the winds on interns at the Weather Channel. It seems the Weather Channel is embracing climate change with reckless abandon as it turns to an aggressively hilarious editorial strategy. [The Weather Channel] UPDATE: Unfortunately the livestream of the interns getting blasted is over, but you can watch a clip at CNBC »
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• If you were a kid growing up in the U.S. in the ’80s and ’90s, or raised a kid during this time, PBS was a testament to the power of good educational television. A satirical trailer-making group called Gritty Robots published a heart-warming video this week of beloved PBS personalities Carl Sagan, Mr. Rogers, Bill Nye the Science Guy (see his TED-Ed lesson above) and Bob Ross as as the Avengers, saving us from bad TV. [Gizmodo]
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• Did you know that being annoyed at the incorrect use of “literally” is about as old as the heinous act itself? Ben Yagoda has a literal breakdown. [Lingua Franca]
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• In response to Amanda Filipacci’s New York Times op-ed piece last week on Wikipedia’s creation of a separate category for American Women Novelists, James Gleick takes a detailed look at Wikipedia’s women problem. [NYRB]
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• New science magazine Nautilus launches its first issue, on the topic “What makes you so special.” We’re excited to see what’s next from this awesome publication. [Nautilus]
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• IBM puts out an animation of epically small proportions, moving atoms with extreme precision. The film holds the Guiness World Record for smallest stop-motion film. [YouTube]
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• How many countries are there in Africa? Answering the question isn’t as easy as it sounds. [Africa Check] Watch Chimamanda Adichie’s classic talk, “The danger of a single story” »
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• A quick, surprising synthesis of an extensive study published by PLoS One, about differences in learning between the sexes. [io9]
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• An inside story on the future of Guantanamo Bay and its history of hunger strikes, by Shihab Rattansi. [Al Jazeera]
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• The painted turtle is on the path to extinction. A sad, strange story of how it may soon become a 100 percent female species, due to the fact that its eggs are more likely to hatch as females if they are in warm nests. [New Scientist]
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• Behold: Nature. Donald Trump. … What? [io9]

Ever wanted to fly like a bird? The 3D video game AERO not only gives you a chance to see what it’s like to flap your wings and take off — it also teaches the principles of physics at the same time. In the game, which was developed with the help of TED-Ed speaker Bill Nye (watch his talk “Sending a sundial to Mars”), the player is an albatross exploring the caves and islands of a beautiful oceanic world. While you play, you get lessons on aerodynamic principles like lift, drag, thrust, and terminal velocity. The game even has a molecular view, so the player can fully understand how flight works.

GameDesk developed a prototype of the game in partnership with Iridescent Learning, the National Academy of Sciences and the Office of Naval Research. Bill Nye stepped in to help with the science, and the makers of the game took six months to make sure that the albatross simulations were spot on. GameDesk also took the game on the road to schools, to make sure it fully resonated with kids.

AERO has taken to Kickstarter to raise money to integrate more challenges and features into the game.

If they raise $100,000 they can have the game out on the iPad next year. If they raise $1 million, they plan to introduce the game on Android and X-Box Kinect as well, and to bring it to schools across the country on iPad minis. As of this morning, the project had 492 backers offering up $7K.

In today’s thrilling TED-Ed lesson, Bill Nye the Science Guy admits that he has S.O.D., otherwise known as Sundial Obsessive Disorder. But there is a good reason for it — a sundial helped Nye’s father escape from a prison camp in China during World War II, launching a lifelong obsession that Nye eventually picked up himself.

At an event several years ago, Nye caught a glimpse of a device — called a “photometric calibration target” — that would soon be on its way to Mars on the outside of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers. The device was essentially a test pattern for cameras — a metal post with gray rings around it — that would allow them to gauge the color of the Martian sky. Nye had an “aha” moment. These devices could easily be turned into sundials, charting the progression of time on the red planet.

Because of Nye’s suggestion, a sundial has now been on Mars.

To hear the amazing story of how Nye’s father escaped from prison camp, and how exactly this Martian sundial works, watch Nye’s wonderful talk. And after the jump, watch seven more talks about Mars.

Joel Levine: Why we need to go back to Mars
The surface of Mars was not what was expected, says atmospheric scientist Joel Levine in this talk from TEDxNasa. Levine explains the tantalizing hints of past life — including craters of ice and evidence of ancient oceans — and why we need more research on the planet.

Penelope Boston says there might be life on Mars
Cave scientist Penelope Boston believes that there is a 25 to 50 percent chance that the Mars Rovers didn’t find life on Mars because said life is inhabiting deep caves.  At TED2006, she gives ideas on where — and how — we should continue the search.

Cynthia Breazeal: The rise of personal robots
The first robot landed on Mars in 1997. So how is it possible that we don’t have them in our homes and offices yet? In this talk from TEDWomen, Cynthia Breazeal explains her work in teaching robots to interact with human beings.

Charles Elachi on the Mars Rovers
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab has become the stuff of legends. At Serious Play 2008, director Charles Elachi tells behind-the-scenes stories and shows rarely seen footage recorded by the Mars Rover project.

Stephen Petranek counts down to Armageddon
What will bring on the end of the world, and what is our best chance for surviving it? In this talk from TED2002, Stephen Petranek describes how we could go about “terraforming” Mars — a process that could take hundreds of years.

Jon Nguyen: Tour the solar system from home
Jon Nguyen is the Visualization Software Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In this talk from TEDxSanDiego, he demos a tool that allows anyone to explore the solar system in detail — even take a trip to Mars — using data provided by spacecrafts in orbit.

Burt Rutan sees the future of space
In this talk from TED2006, spacecraft designer Burt Rutan admits that Mars was not quite as interesting as space enthusiasts had hoped. But he believes that is in part because NASA used robots for the mission to the planet and explored only the deserts. A call for entrepreneurs to pick up the slack in government funding for space exploration.

Photos: James Duncan Davidson

Bill Nye, The Science Guy, would like to discuss with us our place in space. Not with black holes, or multiverses, but here on Earth, where his dad was born. In World War II, Bill Nye’s dad was building an airstrip on Wake Island, in the middle of the Pacific, when it was bombed. He was captured on Chrismas Eve 1941, and was a prisoner of war for 44 months, the longest of any American.

But in camp, he had a special skill. He could tell time by sticking a shovel in the sand, creating a sundial to replace the watches that were confiscated. After returning, he became obsessed with sundials. He created the “sand-dial”, so you don’t have to bring your watch to the beach. He also recived a lifetime membership in the World Sundial Association.

Growing up with his father, Bill Nye himself developed S.O.D., “Sundial obsessive disorder.”

Later, he was invited to NASA to give a talk, and noticed something about the Mars Rovers (yet to be launched): There was a piece on each Rover that was different colored, to calibrate the cameras, with sample colors and a palette of grays of different intensities or, as Bill Nye puts it, “grayths.” They were round, and they needed a post to cast a shadow. Nye, of course, immediately thought, “these need to be sundials!” So today, there are two sundials on Mars.

You can build your own sundial very easily, with a stick and a ping-pong ball. With them, you too can see an analema, the path the sun makes in the sky as the year progressed. ”Very few of us have heard the word analema yet, but we all depend on it.” When the next Mars Rover lands, he wants people all over the world to build these simple sundials, and through them get a better sense of our place in the Universe. “If you take the time this summer, you can, dare I say it, change the world!”